Gazette Midday: Flags at half mast as Parizeau remembered by Quebec's political class

Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau speaks to business people while campaigning for the Yes in Montmagny Tuesday, Oct. 3, 1995. Former Quebec premier Jacques Parizeau has died at the age of 84.JACQUES BOISSINOT / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Hello and welcome to montrealgazette.com and welcome to Midday. Here’s the rundown on some of the stories we’re following for you today.

With the National Assembly flag at half mast Tuesday morning, politicians of all stripes were paying tribute to former premier Jacques Parizeau, who died Monday at age 84. Parizeau slipped away around 8 p.m. Monday after five months in hospital. Most — including Premier Philippe Couillard — had cancelled their political activities for the day as news of Parizeau’s passing Monday made its way through the political class. Tuesday afternoon’s question period was cancelled. At a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Couillard proposed a state funeral and said Parizeau had left detailed instructions for his funeral. The premier announced that the headquarters of the Caisse de dépôt de placement du Québec will be named in Parizeau’s honour.

In a ruling described as “historic” by one lawyer, a Quebec judge has ordered three major cigarette companies to pay $15 billion to smokers in what is believed to be the biggest class-action lawsuit ever seen in Canada. “These three companies lied to their customers for 50 years and hurt their right to life,” Andre Lesperance, one of the lawyers involved in the case, said Monday. “It’s a great victory for victims as well as for society in general.” For Lise Blais, the judgment was bittersweet. One of the two lawsuits that eventually merged into one was filed by her husband, Jean-Yves Blais, shortly before he died of lung cancer in 2012 at the age of 68.

Almost three months after Mayor Denis Coderre announced the creation of a deradicalization centre in Montreal to great fanfare, neither the city nor the police can say when it will be opened, what or where it will be, or even who is on board. Applications for the centre’s director position are being accepted. But the radicalization hotline, set up the same day to receive calls from worried parents or friends, has been ringing: It has received 125 calls since March 9, and the police have intervened on three occasions, according to a statement released by the Montreal police on Monday. The hotline has also received calls for help from five “outside” sources — notably Collège Maisonneuve, the CEGEP where 11 of 17 youths who left Quebec or were arrested at the airport en route to Syria or Iraq attended classes. One female police officer, with training in social work, is stationed at Collège Maisonneuve, the police said, to “diagnose” the situation but mostly to make recommendations to CEGEP management.

The de Maisonneuve and Décarie intersection has become so overrun with cars, bikes, pedestrians and cyclists that the Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district has decided to do a major revamp. The borough had reconfigured the bicycle path and the intersection in April to allow cars to turn left and head east off the Décarie Expressway onto de Maisonneuve Blvd. to get to the new MUHC superhospital. The borough had originally intended to make changes to the bike lane and the intersection in the fall, because engineers wanted to see how the traffic patterns would be affected by the superhospital. But less than two months since the Royal Victoria Hospital moved to the Glen site, borough mayor Russell Copeman said a change was needed. “Clearly, the opening of the MUHC put tremendous pressure on the Décarie/de Maisonneuve corner,” Copeman said. “It became so crowded, so difficult to manoeuvre. We very quickly came to the conclusion that the corner wasn’t working, so we had to find a solution … quickly.”

And finally, May crushed seasonal norms with its spring warmup, but so far June has left Montrealers cold. Take heart: It’s probably going to get better. Canadian meteorologists from the Weather Network revealed their summer forecast Tuesday. For those who wish to read no farther, allow us to sum up: It looks a lot like last year. Only different. “Quebecers will enjoy a nice summer this year, with temperatures and precipitation near seasonal norms. But they can rejoice, because there will be fewer days of extreme heat,” said Weather Network meteorologist Marie-Josée Grégoire in a press release. The statement calls for “extended periods of pleasant summer weather” across southern Quebec with pockets of extreme heat offset by rainier weeks.

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